Is this boat worth restoring?

[Grandalf]

Or should I use it for a lawn art planter with garden gnomes?

I don't know anything about wooden boats. Got this at a give away price at a garage sale. Don't know anything about this boat. Advice wanted?

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

No, it's not. It would be more work to restore it, by a long-shot, than it would take to build a new one properly from scratch and you would still have a pretty poor excuse for a stripper when you got it done. Aside from all the structural issues, it's not a particularly elegantly made canoe to start with. There are lots of old polyester-resin-covered, home-made strippers out there from the 1970s and 1980s and very few of them are worth putting much work into.

If you have two hands and can read and follow directions, you can build a better boat yourself - with modern materials and the books, plans, forums and help that are available these days. No reason to let outdated materials and someone else's poor workmanship drag down your project.

 

[Mark Adams]

Two words.......It's toast!

 

[john hupfield]

Gnomes it is.
John

 

[Dan Lindberg]

I wouldn't even want that in my yard, front or back.
I'd cut it up and put it in the garbage.
It will only take a few minutes.

Dan

 

[Todd Bradshaw]

This one pretty clearly demonstrates the principle that wooden canoes (even not particularly great ones) are far more likely to be killed by bad storage practices than they are by canoeing. Perhaps all canoe building books should be required to include an appendix at the back with instructions for also building a garage.....

 

[Kathryn Klos]

Grandalf-- You were on the right track though-- it's a good thing, to rescue wooden boats and canoes. Your next rescue may be something worthy of getting back onto the water. Most wooden canoes that were originally constructed without fiberglass-- even though they may be very much older than the topic-canoe here-- are often good candidates for restoration.

Best of luck at a future sale!

Kathy